STANLEY CUP FINALS

Mr. Congeniality He's Not, but Mr. Stanley Cup Has a Resounding Ring

By JOE LAPOINTE

Published: June 9, 1997

DETROIT, June 8—
The young coach, Marc Crawford, stood on his team's bench and screamed insults at the old coach, Scotty Bowman. Crawford's eyes bulged and flecks of spittle sprayed from his lips. This was during the third round of the Stanley Cup playoffs last month.

Bowman's Detroit Red Wings were humiliating Crawford's Colorado Avalanche that night in the Western Conference finals. At least Crawford would get in a few verbal shots while his assistants and players restrained him. Bowman looked up at Crawford with eerie calm and composure. Between Crawford's insults, Bowman responded in a level tone of voice, his gaze fixed, his words icy.

The 63-year-old Bowman told the 36-year-old Crawford that he knew his father before Crawford was even born and that his father wouldn't be proud of his son right now.

Bowman's Red Wings went on to eliminate Crawford's Avalanche in six games. The Red Wings followed that by sweeping the Philadelphia Flyers in a championship round that ended with a 2-1 victory Saturday night in Joe Louis Arena.

The championship, Detroit's first since 1955, was Bowman's seventh as a coach, one short of the coaching record held by Toe Blake, his mentor in Montreal in the 1960's when Bowman coached a junior team in the Canadiens' system.

Bowman is the first coach in the history of the National Hockey League to win the cup with three different teams. His first five were with Montreal, and his sixth with the Pittsburgh Penguins. He earned another ring with Pittsburgh as a front-office executive.

Bowman first coached in this league 30 years ago, with the St. Louis Blues. Because of his longevity and his success, Bowman's career record and reputation will rank him with coaches and managers such as Red Auerbach of basketball's Boston Celtics, Vince Lombardi of football's Green Bay Packers and Casey Stengel of baseball's Yankees.

But these men had a certain charm, gruff as it sometimes was. Few will ever accuse Scotty Bowman of charm. Many other coaches praise him only grudgingly, possibly enviously. Crawford's display, extreme and embarrassing, may have been a singular manifestation of the bitter feelings many in hockey hold toward Bowman.

Players who chafe under his rule sometimes denounce him when they leave his employment. The most recent were Dino Ciccarelli and Shawn Burr of Tampa and Bob Errey of San Jose, all of whom belittled Bowman's personal quirks after he shipped them off the Red Wings roster in the past year.

Ciccarelli called Bowman ''a great coach and a rotten person.'' Errey said Bowman used Slava Kozlov as a ''Russian whipping boy'' because he knew he could intimidate Kozlov, who wouldn't fight back.

Burr said Bowman kicks over the luggage of strangers at airports. Bowman once asked Burr what Burr thought of him and Burr replied: ''You're 60 years old, you use a horn to make line changes, you play with toy trains. I think you are retarded.''

But many who know Bowman, and don't necessarily like him, will admit he might be a hockey genius. Steve Shutt, who played for Bowman in the 1970's in Montreal, once said that Bowman is the kind of coach a player hates for 364 days a year before putting on his championship ring on Day 365.

When he coached Pittsburgh in the early 1990's, the players agreed to play for Bowman only if he stayed in the locker room during practice. He has more power over the players in Detroit, but the team's bitter office politics are an open secret.

Jim Devellano, the senior vice president of the team and Bowman's superior on the organizational depth chart, said during the season that he doesn't like Bowman and Bowman doesn't like him but that they are able to work together.

It was thought through much of the season that this would be Bowman's last as Detroit's coach, although his contract has a two-year rider to work as a front-office consultant. Now that he is one cup away from Blake's record, Bowman said on Saturday night that he might return.

''I am going to agonize over it,'' Bowman said. ''This makes it a tough decision. I will wait in a couple weeks and talk to the people that own the team and see where my priorities lie. Naturally, my idol in coaching was Toe Blake.''

When Atanas Ilitch, vice president of the Wings and the son of the team's owner, Mike Ilitch, was asked whether Bowman would return, he responded, ''I would hope so, given the result.''

Not a tall man, Bowman has a big presence. His body is barrel-chested. His head is large and he often tilts it back. If an actor were cast in the role of Bowman, it would be Marlon Brando, from his ''Apocalypse, Now'' or ''Godfather'' period.

Bowman took up coaching after his junior career ended because of a head injury caused by an opponent's stick. For decades, it was said that Bowman had a surgically implanted metal plate in his head because of that injury.

Last spring, while Crawford's Avalanche defeated Bowman's Wings in the Western finals, Crawford made insulting remarks about how Bowman must be behaving strangely because he was getting radio signals through the plate in his head. Bowman replied that he had never had a plate in his head.

Conversations with Bowman are often puzzling. Ask him about Toe Blake and his answer might be about the lack of tickets available for the finals for his players. Ask him about a specific play in last night's game and he might answer with something Toe Blake told him 40 years ago.

Bowman seems to have several personalities, not just moods. He will invite people to dinner one night -- and pick up the tab -- and coldly ignore them the next morning after picking their brains for information.

Around Detroit, he drives a car with two baseball caps prominently displayed in the back window. The logos aren't for sports teams but rather bear the insignia of two local police departments. Someone walking by the car -- a potential thief, perhaps -- might conclude that the car was owned by a police officer.

A few weeks ago, when the police set up a dragnet for two jewel thieves in an exclusive neighborhood, they cordoned off the streets and refused to let most people through their lines. But Bowman showed up, on the way to a deli to pick up his weekly ration of rice pudding, made fresh that day. He explained his mission, and the police let him through.

Bowman's daughter, Nancy, a nursing student at the University of Michigan, said last week that Bowman named her brother Stanley after the Stanley Cup.

''For 10 years, he thought his middle name was 'Cup,' '' she said.

Certainly, Bowman has a sentimental streak. When his team won Saturday, he put on his skates and carried the trophy across the ice.

''I always wanted to be a player in the N.H.L. and skate with the cup,'' Bowman said. ''It is pretty heavy, but it is pretty light, too. I have always dreamt about doing it, like to be a player, but couldn't play.''

He planned to wait until after his players carried the trophy, but they urged him to take a turn early in the procession. So he did.